


fairness is a family value

by loracarol



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Introspection, Past Merle/Hecuba
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-17
Updated: 2017-11-17
Packaged: 2019-02-03 12:23:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12748236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loracarol/pseuds/loracarol
Summary: A portrait of Hecuba Roughridge, regarding the Day of Story and Song.





	fairness is a family value

**Author's Note:**

> It could probably be gen? But there's some language so better safe then sorry, right?

Hecuba Roughridge had always told her children that life wasn't fair. No, it wasn't fair that her first husband had died, leaving Mavis without a father. No, it wasn't fair that her second husband had left them, leaving both her children with one parent gone. No, it wasn't fair that their house was small, their clothes were secondhand. It wasn't fair, but seldom few things were. 

At least Merle had started to  _try_ with his children, giving Hecuba afternoons where she could just  _be_. She loved her kids, completely and utterly, but when she was their only adult.... It got tiring sometimes. She used some of those afternoons to go out to town and pretend she had the money to buy the utterly ridiculous. A monokini that covered maybe 5% of the body, if one was to be generous, and had to be spelled to repel water as the material would become ruined if even a drop touched it. Swim goggles enchanted to look like sunglasses, so you could swim without sacrificing the #aesthetic. Beach tents made of pure silk that had to be magicked against the wind and salt or else they were useless...

...All things that she could never afford. That was alright, though - that wasn't her primary reason for enjoying her trips into town. She knew it made her a horrible person, but the gossip people were willing to drop when her kids weren't around filled her with a kind of, not joy exactly, but it made her feel  _better_. Gossip about what Merle was up to, commiseration about her lot in life, respect for her troubles. It was awful, but Pan preserve her, after the utter shit show both of her marriages had been, could anyone blame her? After the lackluster marriage between Hecuba and Merle, their fights, his apathy, his betrayal. 

Here, people  _knew_. People _understood._  

At least, they had. But, then again, she thought she had understood things too. 

That was all before the Day of Story and Song.  

\----

As information slammed into her head, Hecuba stumbled. She had been looking for Mavis, but the tale made her falter. 

There was Merle -  _her_ Merle, and - oh - !

Gods, life was unfair. 

\----

At least she knew now how her first husband had died.

\----

The Merle that showed up in the story was  _different_. He was _whole_ in a way that "her" Merle had never been.

She wondered if she could have loved that Merle. Wondered how their life would have been different if this was the Merle she'd always known. What kind of husband would he have been? What kind of father? 

There was no point in trying to reconnect with him now, with all the years of bitterness between them. She knew it was foolish, but it made her hate that Lu- woman. Lucretia? Lucretia, just a little. She knew that the woman had had more on her plate then a pitiful dwarf woman in a backwater town. More to worry about, more to care about. But. She could remember the days after Merle had left, the shock on her children's faces, their tears, their futile hope.

And her own tears, late and night where they couldn't see. Not for what they had, no - but what they could have had, if they'd tried harder. Tears as she went over her financials, and started counting copper pieces.

Hecuba shoved those thoughts to the side. They were uncharitable, and she was better then that. And in the end, the world had been saved, hadn't it? It had worked, hadn't it? What were her problems compared to the world? The worlds?

Then Merle wrote and asked if Mavis and Mookie could stay with him for "a bit."  

\----

...

\----

She had to say yes. She had no choice. 

\----

After all, he was the hero, one of the travelers who had helped to save the world. 

\----

She could feel the looks, and hear the way the gossip started to change. She was no longer Hecuba Roughridge whose husband had left her and her two children. She was no longer the poor dwarf woman who'd been abandoned in the night by a lethargic layabout. People started to stare, started to wonder. Merle Highchurch was this glorious hero, what had Hecuba done to drive him away? 

After all, knowing what they knew... Hecuba had to have driven him away. 

What kind of hero would leave his children like that? 

What kind of monster was she? 

Hecuba wanted to scream at them. The Merle in the story  _wasn't_ the Merle she'd been married to! The Merle she'd been married to was a tenth of a dwarf the visions showed! She had never lied about her life with him, and he  _had_ abandoned them! 

But that didn't matter anymore, did it? The narrative had changed. 

Hecuba said yes - she  _had_ to say yes. No one was calling her "that bitch keeping the hero's children away from him," not yet, and she wasn't going to give them the ammunition for that accusation. Not that Merle was implying that - or ever would. For all his faults, he'd never badmouthed her to the children. 

But she knew the looks. She knew the gossip.  

She wrote back to him, letting him know when he could expect their - his - children, and started packing their things. They were out in the yard playing. With any luck, she'd have their things packed by dinner time, and they'd be off in the morning.

What else could she do?

It wasn't like life was fair. 

**Author's Note:**

> I love concrit. :) 
> 
> I'll let y'all decide for yourselves how much of an unreliable narrator Hecuba is/isn't. ;)


End file.
